THE CIA has refused to make public a classified dossier containing details of all the diplomatic dealings between China and the United States since the Richard Nixon era.
Four years after the Los Angeles Times made a request under the Freedom of Information Act for access to the top-secret files, the agency has finally said no.
The refusal comes only weeks after the CIA, under pressure from President Bill Clinton's administration, said it would open up some of its most sensitive post-war files in a gesture of US glasnost.
Reacting to the decision, the newspaper speculated it must mean the China dossiers were even more sensitive than papers relating to other matters, such as dealings with the Soviet Union and Vietnam.
It claims the real story behind the Nixon era dealings with Mao Zedong and his premier Zhou Enlai is being concealed because it would prove embarrassing to past officials.
Burning questions which will remain unanswered include: What did Mao and Mr Nixon discuss on the Vietnam War? What diplomatic moves have been made on Taiwan? What happened to influence Jimmy Carter's decision to normalise relations with Beijing in 1979? Did Mr Nixon offer to help China in its military clashes with the Soviet Union in the late 1960s? And, most importantly, has the US been outmanoeuvred by Chinese leaders over the past 20 years? All the CIA has handed to the Los Angeles Times is a chronology of key events in Sino-US relations, but even then details of meetings have been blacked out.
